Saturday, March 5, 2011

Tomorrow: By the time you get there it's today

After driving our pickup home on icy roads with snow blowing sideways and a semi bearing down on me, I had a much deeper appreciation for the phrase “white-knuckling it.” I was just grateful to make it to our driveway without sliding off the highway or adorning the hood of the semi.

My husband calls snow the Great Equalizer. It slows everyone, covers everyone. All of us are the same: travelers struggling to make it safely to our destinations, whether in semis or pickups.

As much as I love the beauty of the falling flakes, I’ll admit I groused about dashing through them from the parking lot to the grocery store that day. “My hair will frizz as soon as it dries,” I whined.

My world is so immediate. I took the pickup that morning without much thought of a snowy day. Didn’t take a muffler. No umbrella. No extra coat in the back seat.

This is Colorado; I knew better.

Remember when your mother said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today”? People credit Thomas Jefferson with those words, but I don’t believe it. It had to be someone from Colorado where the weather can drop 30 degrees in 10 minutes and you can use sun tan oil and snow boots on the same day. It had to be someone like me who put off taking her broken glasses into town on Saturday because she was going on Sunday so she’d do it then and save a trip.

Ha! Not here. Not when a winter blizzard can blow in hours before it’s predicted, clog your driveway with snow and coat the highways in sheet ice.

Guess who spent three days trying to read and work at the computer in a white-out?

Procrastination cost me a lot, but it also gave me something in return: blurred vision and a killer headache.

Some people put off going to the doctor. Others put off saving money, exercising, eating right or talking to God.

Snow isn’t the only equalizer, so it time. We don’t get tomorrow. We think we do, but by the time we get there, it’s today.

Whatever it is you need to do, from saving money to talking to God, do it today. It’s really the only time you have.

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